Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/261

 will mind me, if you don't keep them under? Hamâady is coming to-morrow to Jôon: he must be sent for, and shall interrogate the rascal; I warrant you, he'll soon bring it to light."

When I left her for dinner, she had said to me, "Send me word a quarter of an hour before you return to say you are coming." This, in my hurry to get through so much writing for her, I had neglected to do; and it, therefore, served now as the text for a new grievance. "Didn't I say," she asked me, "let me know a quarter of an hour beforehand when you are ready to come to me? that quarter of an hour was everything to me: I wished to have more candles brought in on account of your eyes, to have the paper and ink got ready, and to collect my thoughts; but no! everybody must do as they like, and poor I be  made the sacrifice.—I will live by the rule of grandeur."

Then she called her maids in, one after another, poured on them a torrent of abuse for their laziness, dirt, and insolence. My heart sickened to think what would be the consequence of all this to herself; for I knew very well that her whole frame, the next morning, would be debilitated from such excitement: yet all this time her passion was sublimely eloquent, and, sick though she was, terrible. Her maids tumbled over each other from fright, and the thunder that